We Protect Him, Don't We?
by HimekawaRie
Summary: Hisoka has a very protective guard. He just never realizes it. Grated, his way of protectig is somewhat... off...


_Another Yami no Matsuei attempt, with a good Muraki in it. Not really… ehehehe…_

_No, they're not mine_

**We Protect Him, Don't We?**

_Why?_

"If it's really so simple, why do we need three shinigami?"

"We don't need three shinigami, Hisoka, Tatsumi-san merely tag along for another business."

"Yeah. Can you really expect Tatsumi to let other people do the division shopping?"

"Watari-san… Shut up."

"Whatever you say, Tatsumi."

_Why?_

"Are you sure this kekkai is strong enough?"

"It should be. It's not like we're dealing with another general from makai anyway."

"Well, we can never be too cautious, Tsuzuki-san. I'll double the shield."

"Just double the one around Hisoka. I can take care of myself."

"I'm fine, Tsuzuki. Kurikara wouldn't let anything happen to me."

"Yeah, but unlike Suzaku, Kurikara isn't used to instant travel without summon."

_Why?_

"Kurosaki-kun! Duck!"

_Why?_

"Tatsumi-san! Tatsumi-san!"

"Oh, kami-sama… Tatsumi…"

"Tsuzuki… Hisoka… is Hisoka…"

"He's okay, Tatsumi… he's okay…"

_Why?_

"How is he, Watari?"

"He's resting. He bled enough to strip him from his shinigami life, though… He's not getting out of bed for a month, if it's up to me to decide…"

"Aa…"

"Bon's okay, too."

"Aa…"

"Tsuzuki?"

"We really should teach him more fuda magic, I guess…"

"Who? Tatsumi?"

"No. Hisoka. If he's capable enough to hold the kekkai, Tatsumi-san wouldn't be distracted at all…"

"Aa. I guess you're right."

_Why?_

"I'll teach him more techniques, Tsuzuki, but why don't you teach him yourself?"

"I can't, Kachou, I'm not a good teacher… Not for him… I'll be too emotional…"

"Well, then, I'll see what I can do."

_Why?_

"Did'ja hear what happened, Wakaba-chan?"

"Yeah… It's a shame, really…"

"It's bound to happen sooner or later. You know that, Saya-chan"

"But still… I thought he's getting better, right, Yuma-chan?"

"Obviously you're wrong, Kannuki."

_Why?_

_If I'm so useless…_

_Why didn't I just die?_

Muraki Kazutaka is a tidy person. He has to be one, considering that he enjoys wearing white. White and dirt do not mix well. Nor does white and mud. But white and blood… that's an interesting combination for the doctor.

Beside white and blood, Muraki Kazutaka also loves some other things. Sakura, red moon, Oriya, Ukyou, Bouya, and Tsuzuki-san. Not necessarily in that order. And rain, too. Rain always makes things more… melancholic.

That night, Muraki got plenty. Sakura, rain, blood, and bouya.

But for once, the blood was not of his making.

His doll had always been beautiful, especially when he's bleeding and screaming. Muraki knows that by heart, of course. But looking at him, bleeding all over the ground because of far too many wounds created by his own delicate hands, a knife clutched in his hand, falling sakura petals raining on him, creating a pink burial mound, Muraki did not have the time to appreciate the beauty before him.

He rushed to check on the boy, _his boy_, and cursed softly as he wrapped the cold unresponsive body in his white trench coat. Usually, bouya would've fought furiously by now, but he stayed limp in his murderer's arms.

Muraki cursed again. What was Tsuzuki-san thinking, leaving his partner alone in the rain like that? And what about this self-cutting-and-stabbing anyway? Tsuzuki-san was suicidal, he knows that, but his doll is not!

He decided to choose the fast way in; he reached into his abundance reservoir of power and teleported right into his room in KoKakuRou, yelling for Oriya.

The owner of the brothel rushed in, took the sight in a second and rushed out again, while Muraki simply threw his futon and laid the bleeding boy on it, carefully stripping his clothes off.

Oriya rushed in again, a towel and a basin of warm water in his hands, and knelt beside Muraki.

"For once, Oriya, it's not my doing."

"Good. Are you saving him?"

"Damn hell I am. No one hurt bouya but myself."

"Duly noted," Oriya flinched slightly. He'll deal with Muraki's off-logic later. They had a shinigami to save.

"Where's his partner?"

"Dunno. He's alone."

Okay, Oriya thought, that's wrong.

"He's not with Bon?"

"Nope. Give me that towel."

"Aye."

During their ministration, the boy stirred, jade eyes opened slightly, taking in the picture of the two men hovering over him, and recognition came in those verdant eyes.

Oriya was about to throw Muraki off the room for fear the boy will do something irreparable in his fear, but the boy simply grasped Muraki's hand, stilling him.

Seconds ticked by

"Muraki…"

"Yes, Bouya, it's me…"

"Kill…"

"What?"

"Kill me… please…"

Oriya could swear he saw Muraki blanched, but the odd expression promptly disappeared, replaced by immense concentration.

"Can't. You're dead. I killed you. By all rights you're supposed to be dead."

"Yeah…"

"I'm fixing you up, and then I'm going to have a yelling session with Tsuzuki-san, and for once, I will really be yelling."

"Forget it. He's busy…"

"Too busy to notice you having a nervous breakdown?"

"Umm…"

Those green eyes closed, Hisoka's head lolled limply to the side.

Oriya reached out to swept the boy's blond bangs, and noted that the boy was not as cold as he was before. Nope, the boy was starting to burn with fever. "Infection…" he shook his head, "Something's wrong…"

"Damn hell it is," Muraki hissed, "And as soon as I got this bleeding stopped, I'm going to find out what."

Tsuzuki hand up the phone and sighed.

"He's not answering?" asked Watari.

"I checked his house, he's not there; called his cell-phone, no one answered."

"That's weird… It's not like Bon to disappear just like that."

"Maybe he felt guilty of what happened," Konoe offered.

"I told him it's not his fault," Tatsumi said, "At least I think I did, before I passed out."

"You did. I did, too. And Hisoka knows better than that. Every mission is a risk, he knows that."

"Where is he, then? Should we send people out to look for him?" Watari asked, absently petting 003.

"I'm not sure…"

Whatever Tsuzuki was about to say was cut off by a ring from his cell-phone.

"Eh? Maybe it's Hisoka… Hello."

"Tsuzuki-san?"

"Yes, who is this?"

"I'm… Mibu Oriya…"

Tsuzuki's eyes narrowed, "Mibu… Oriya?"

Watari stood up from his chair even as Tatsumi straightened on the infirmary bed.

"Yes. We haven't met before, but … I think you've heard of me…"

"You're the owner of KoKakuRou. You are Muraki's friend."

"Yes. I just want you to know… Muraki has your young partner here, in KoKakuRou."

"WHAT?"

"I really think you should come, Tsuzuki-san, but for your own sake, don't come alone. Bring that blond and brunet friends of yours…"

And then Oriya hung up.

"Will it be enough?" Oriya asked Muraki, who sat beside his sleeping doll.

"Yeah. They'll come here on the double."

"Is he…?"

"He's okay. Tired, but mending. His empathy is frazzled, though, but it's okay, I think."

"What do you think happened?"

"Probably Tsuzuki-san said or did something stupid to Bouya."

"Eh..."

Oriya looked up to see three shinigami appeared before him; the Kansai blond, the somber brunet (whose arm's braced on his chest in a sling), and a tensed amethyst-eyed brunet.

"Oriya-san," the blond greeted him, his amber eyes glittered slightly.

"You've come," Oriya stood up and brushed his kimono, "If you'll follow me, please."

"Where's…"

"Later," Oriya cut whatever it was the brunet wanted to say, "It's better if you see for yourself. I'm afraid no explanation will be enough for this."

He led the three along many turns in his huge compound, and finally, he opened a sliding door toward Muraki's room.

"Kazutaka. They're here."

"Good."

Oriya moved out of the way, and the three were greeted by a vision so strange, it almost knocked them back.

Muraki was wringing a towel beside their prone youngest ward.

"Come in, Tsuzuki-san, Tatsumi-san, Watari-san. I won't bite. I have too much in my hands right now."

Feeling awkward facing the doctor side of their psychopath, the three entered the room and found themselves sitting in a half circle, facing Muraki and Oriya, who had taken his place beside Muraki and was sprinkling mint into a small basin, the prone Hisoka between the living and the dead.

"I found him under a sakura tree in a shrine near Shion-dai in the middle of a heavy rain," Muraki explained absently, his hand brushing Hisoka's bangs before putting the towel on his forehead, "He was bleeding furiously, so I took him here."

The three looked at each other.

"What I want to ask is, where were you, Tsuzuki-san?" Muraki lifted his head, his silver eyes catching Tsuzuki's amethyst ones, trapping him under his gaze, "I thought Shinigami worked in pairs."

"I…" Tsuzuki shut his mouth, looking at Tatsumi helplessly.

"Tsuzuki was with me in Meifu, watching over Tatsumi who was injured in a mission," Watari offered, his eyes were intently looking at his bon.

"Oh…" Muraki's eyes looked at Tatsumi briefly, "And Tatsumi-san's partner in the mission was…"

"No one," Tatsumi shook his head, "It was Tsuzuki-san and Kurosaki-kun's mission. I was merely there for back up."

"Oh. And the back up got hurt while the partners were okay. Tell me, Tatsumi-san. Did you get hurt protecting Tsuzuki-san, or Bouya?"

"…" Tatsumi looked at Tsuzuki, who lowered his gaze.

"Bouya," Muraki answered his own question.

Silence fell.

"And then what happened?" Oriya's voice rose.

"We… I… rushed Tatsumi to Watari. Hisoka also had a minor graze, but that's all, while Tatsumi was…" Tsuzuki shook his head, clearing the image in his head.

"And you two stayed by Tatsumi-san the whole time? No one checked on Bon?"

"He said he's okay…" Watari shrugged helplessly, "And we were busy with Tatsumi."

"And when he went to chijou, did anyone notice?" asked Muraki.

"We've been trying to contact him, to find him, for the past hours. But because it's not the first time he disappeared without notice, and we were preoccupied, we didn't notice until this morning when he failed to show up in the office."

"I found him late last night. It took us almost six hours straight to stop the bleeding, and quench the fever. It's coming down, now, but it was raging very high."

Tsuzuki looked appalled, Tatsumi's hands flew to correct his glasses, while Watari looked at Muraki silently.

"How was he when you found him?" the shinigami doctor asked.

"Unconscious, bleeding all over the ground," Muraki said impassively, his hands replaced the towel with a new one, "with numerous cuts and stabs all over his body."

"What?" Tsuzuki paled, "Who…"

"Himself."

Silence reigned again.

"What?" Tsuzuki croaked.

"Himself. He cut and stabbed himself over and over again, it seemed, until all the blood loss made him too weak to repeat his action, and he fainted. The knife is over there, on the dresser. It's spelled all over. I must admit, Bouya's getting better in his jujutsu knowledge. The spell used is a quite complicated one."

The three shinigami looked lost.

"And the weirdest thing is, when he woke up the first time, when we were undressing him, Oriya and I, he looked at me and asked me to kill him," Muraki smiled, looking at the three intently, "can you believe that?"

The three simply looked aghast.

"I can't, of course, I already did once, there's really no point in killing him again when he's already dead, but I also can't let anyone hurt my doll, even if the person is himself. You see, I've claimed the boy, and I'm the only one who's allowed to break him. I would deal with anyone hurting my doll in the same way I would've dealt with Saki."

Tatsumi's eyes twitched.

"Now, tell me, shinigami-tachi. Which one of you hurts my doll? Or perhaps, all of you?"

TBC… 

_Author's Note:_

_Hullo everyone._

_Like I stated above, this is an attempt of a not-so-evil Muraki. Although some may not agree about this… But SarahKurai seemed to like it._

_Like always, all mistakes are solely mine, as I have no beta-reader available right now._

_Thanks for reading, hopefully more will come soon!_

Tenno Himekawa Rie 


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